I'd like to leave this world like I came into it: Screaming, naked & covered in someone else's blood

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Posted On:1/05/2009 8:08am

Style: Muay Thai (BJJ hiatus)

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No Carbs after Midday?

I was just reading an interview with Hugh Jackman regarding his exercise regime for the new X-Men movie. He stated that he gets up at 4am to eat egg whites, trains for an hour and a half a day and doesn't eat carbs after midday.

I already train for something like that and there's no fucking way I'm getting up at 4am without having to find a new Girlfriend but how feasible is it to not eat any carbs after Midday?

If I'm doing an hour and a half of Jits in the evening, will I suffer if I don't get some carbs before hand?

This is unsurprising. When you rely on carbs your insulin and therfore energy levels are fluctuating. Ketones are much more constant, people on high fat/protein low carb diets often say they become more clear thinking after the initial phase.

You do want to get some carbs though, whether by cycling a carb up day into your week or taking them post workout to ensure you don't explode your thyroid.

I was just reading an interview with Hugh Jackman regarding his exercise regime for the new X-Men movie. He stated that he gets up at 4am to eat egg whites, trains for an hour and a half a day and doesn't eat carbs after midday.

I already train for something like that and there's no fucking way I'm getting up at 4am without having to find a new Girlfriend but how feasible is it to not eat any carbs after Midday?

If I'm doing an hour and a half of Jits in the evening, will I suffer if I don't get some carbs before hand?

I tried a fairly strict paleo diet for a few months (not a zero carb diet, but no grains, bread, pasta, potatoes or sugar, only fresh fruit and vegetables allowed, lots of other rules about types of fat allowed and being very strict about additives and synthetic processing).

By fairly strict, I mean I still drank red wine a couple of nights a week, but reduced my alcohol intake and avoided beer and spirits (as recommended in the book).

This is my anecdote of what happened to me:-

1) I seemed to maintain my 1rm in my lifts, and seemed to have the same aerobic stamina for 30 minute+ sessions on the jogging/elipitical, but my muscular endurance dipped quite dramatically. For example, the maximum number of pressups I could do basically halved after a week of eating so much less carbohydrate.

2) I lost weight dramatically in the first three weeks (mostly fluid loss I would've thought).

3) After about 2 weeks, my muscular endurance came back, and actually surpassed it's previous level. At this stage, the weight loss stabilised at a steady fat loss-level of a couple of pounds a week. I felt energetic and good.

The literature on this type of diet by it's proponents claim that the human body has to get used to utilizing fatty acids rather than carbs, and in the first couple of weeks there's a dip in glycogen which is fatiguing until the body 'switches gear' and then you'll feel better. My anecdotal experience chimed with this.

This is why I don't still do it now:-

Its fucking expensive and awkward trying to get all of your calories from fresh lean meat, fish, nuts and fresh fruit and vegetables. I tried to be absolutely as economical as possible, and my food expenditure still more than doubled. Whilst it's very easy to make a tasty and satisfying meal this way, when you're not at home it's often very hard to get a meal that doesn't come with bread, pasta or potatoes. You can ask them to leave it out in a restaurant, but if you're just quickly shopping for something cheap to microwave at work, it all comes with bread, potatoes, rice, pastry or pasta.

So no, I think you can adapt to not having bread etc.. in your diet (and even be physically better off without them) as long as you get the enough of the right sort of fat down, but it's taxing to sustain.

I'd like to leave this world like I came into it: Screaming, naked & covered in someone else's blood

Join Date

Dec 2005

Location

Essex

Posts

3,791

Posted On:1/06/2009 5:07pm

Style: Muay Thai (BJJ hiatus)

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Thanks for the input guys.

My plan is to have my complex carbs in the morning - Bagels, Cereals, pasta etc with a source of protein.

Around midday I'm going to have something like a little Pasta and then only get carbs from my post-workout shake and what is found within fruit and vegetables (which is quite low if I remember correctly)